


Insomnia

by prepare4trouble



Series: Little By Little [41]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hera can't sleep, Insomnia, Kanan and Hera sleep together, Kanan can't sleep, Talking Things Over, Thinking things through, Visually Impaired Ezra Bridger, implications of Kanera, in the same bed, like literally go to sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 01:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13470831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: Unable to sleep while his mind goes over the events of a difficult day, Kanan visits Hera to talk things through.





	Insomnia

Kanan could always find Hera.  Even blind; even newly blind.  Even in those first few days of confusion and pain, he had reached out for her, both physically and – when she hadn’t been close enough to put her hand in his – through the Force.

Even now, when he woke in the middle of the night confused and still half lost in some nightmare.  If she was close by, he would find her presence, and it would help.  It didn’t matter whether she was right there in the room with him, in her own quarters across the hall, or at the other side of the base.

Of course, if he got to know someone well enough that he could easily differentiate their presence in the Force, he could do that with anybody; but he didn’t.  It was Hera that he instinctively reached for, and if she was there, he always found her.

He wasn’t sure whether she knew that.  He suspected not, he had never told her.

There had been no nightmares tonight; no dreams of Kaller, or of Malachor.  No dreams at all.  Sleep had eluded him for hours as he had lain on his bunk, listening to the sound of his white noise machine, mind reliving the events of the day.  Or more specifically, reliving the conversations of the day.  The things he and Hera had said but, more importantly, the things he had said to Ezra.

He hadn’t meant to tell him those things.  He hadn’t meant to tell him  _anything_  yet.  In fact, the part of the day that he had spent with Ezra had originally been set aside for starting to build a plan, thinking about what Ezra would need to know, and in what order, and how much Kanan should allow him to discover for himself.

He hadn’t been going to do this the same way he had Ezra’s Jedi training; making it up as he went, calling on half-remembered lessons from his childhood, leaping erratically from subject to subject, moving on too quickly to far too advanced concepts.  He had been going to do it  _right_.  He had been going to sit down and create a plan in his head, maybe even record it onto his datapad in a format that he would be able to to listen to later.

Well, no.  Probably not that.  But he  _had_  been going to come up with a solid plan that he could – more or less – stick to.  What he  _hadn’t_  been going to do was lose control and spill his frustrations onto his student, panicking him so much that he had hidden his Force presence in an effort not to let Kanan see how afraid he was.

Maybe the whole thing hadn’t been as bad as he thought.  Every time Kanan allowed his mind to do another pass over the morning’s events, it felt a little worse.  Maybe by now, the memory had become so warped that he didn’t know exactly what had happened.

He massaged his brow with the tips so his fingers and tried to readjust his perspective.  So it hadn’t been a great talk; it had been a necessary one, and one that was going to have to happen sooner or later anyway.  Of course, if he’d had a little  _warning_  that it was going to happen, he might have been able to control it better.  Mostly, Kanan just wished Ezra had allowed him to sense him, he would have had a much clearer idea how Ezra had reacted, and of how bad he should be feeling about it right now.

It had probably been for the best, regardless.  He just wasn’t sure why he couldn’t make himself switch off and go to sleep.

He turned over onto his other side and curled an arm under his head.  He was tired, and if he could just force himself to relax for a few minutes, he knew he would sleep.  That was the problem, though; relaxation couldn’t be forced, and if the hour of meditation he had completed hadn’t successfully pushed the repeating thoughts from his mind, he was probably going to have to accept that sleep wasn’t going to come for him tonight.

He was either going to lie there all night until he rolled out of bed in the morning, exhausted and barely able to function, or he was going to finally drop off in the early hours only to be woken what felt like minutes later.

The white noise generator that usually comforted him was a distraction tonight.  It felt as though the noise was preventing him from falling asleep, but twice now he had turned it off only to find the silence worse, and with that silence came the looming promise of those disorienting moments after he finally slept, when he would wake and not know where he was.

He reached out his arm and found the top of the device.  He switched it over to the rain sounds Ezra had selected when he had borrowed the spare bunk one night, then closed his eyes and tried to relax, but it was no better.  Finally, he did what he always did at times like thing; reached out through the Force, and found Hera.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her also awake.  She seemed to sleep so much less now than when they had first met, less than when it had just been the three — and then four, five and finally six — of them on the Ghost.  The new responsibilities she had taken on had taken their toll.  But it wasn’t work that he was sensing from her.

With late night work came a sense of weariness, and determination to get through whatever it was that she was doing so she could earn the reward of climbing into bed and closing her eyes for a few blissful hours.  That wasn’t what he was sensing from her now; it was frustration and guilt, emotions that matched his own.

He didn’t  _know_  she was lying awake going through her talk with Ezra and the things he had discussed with her afterward over and over in her mind, but it was a good bet that it was weighing on her just as much as on him.  

Well, at least Kanan knew he wouldn’t be disturbing her if he turned up at her door.  That was the other problem with her new responsibilities, the reason why she was so often up late at night; the work needed to be done.  Him interrupting her wouldn’t get it done any faster.

Of course, if she would just learn to delegate more… but that was a discussion they had had before, and not one that he wanted to repeat now.

With a sigh, he thumped the button on the top of the white noise generator, plunging the room into silence, then rolled out of bed.  He grabbed his robe as he passed where it was hanging, and headed for the door.

He wasn’t sure of the time; it wasn’t important.  It was late.  All around him, he could sense the rest of the crew sleeping; even Chopper had entered low power mode.  As the door to his quarters opened, he caught an unexpected hint of a sweet smell in the air, like waffles and syrup.  He breathed in deeper, but it was gone.  Shrugging internally, he turned toward Hera’s door, and pressed the door chime.  He heard it sound out on the other side, quiet to his ears, muffled slightly by the layer of metal that made up the walls and door.  He waited.

After a short while, long enough for her to throw on a robe or similar of her own, the door slid open, and Kanan affected a sheepish smile.  “I can’t sleep,” he said.

He sensed her mild irritation giving way to amusement, and imagined her smile at him.  She stepped aside to let him in.  Her feet, probably bare, were silent on the floor of her quarters and it took him a moment to realize she had moved.  He stepped through, and the door closed behind him.

“Me either,” Hera admitted.

He had known that.  He didn’t bother to point that out to her; the chances were, she already knew.

“How was Ezra?” she asked.  “After I left, your lesson?”

Kanan sighed and leaned against the wall.  “Ezra’s… Ezra.  And the best I can say about the lesson is that it wasn’t a complete disaster.  I wasn’t expecting that today, so I didn’t have anything planned.”

He heard Hera walking now, as she crossed the room and sat down on her bed.  Kanan stayed where he was.

“We talked through some stuff;  _I_  talked through some stuff, got a bit carried away but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure he needed to hear it.” Maybe not right  _then_ , but on the other hand, maybe that had been the perfect time.

Hera’s attention spiked at the other side of the room.  “What kind of stuff?”

Kanan shook his head.  “Don’t worry, I didn’t upset him any worse than you did…” That hadn’t come out right.  He cringed, then leaned his head back against the wall with a soft bump.  “Sorry.  I don’t really want to talk about Ezra right now.”

“Kanan,” she said, and he could almost hear the narrowing of her eyes.  “What kind of stuff?”

He was going to have to talk about Ezra, whether he wanted to or not.  After all, wasn’t that the very thing that was keeping him up?  He sighed.  “Hey, so do you know what’s a terrible way to help a scared kid who’s recently found out he’s going to go blind? Start talking about all the things he hasn’t thought about that are going to make life difficult for him.”

A pause from Hera, then, “You didn’t?”

He leaned a little heavier against the wall.  “Little things,” he said, “but sometimes they’re the worst part.  You can be prepared for having to learn how to find your way around again, but not even think about what it’s like to forget the face of someone you care about.”

Hera got to her feet and crossed the room so quickly that Kanan, with his mind on other things, barely registered her movement until she was right in front of him.  She put her hand in his, her skin was warm and soft against his palm.  

“I didn’t tell him that,” Kanan said.  “I might have, if I hadn’t stopped myself.”

It might not have been a bad thing if he had.  Well, it would have added to the list of things he had to feel bad about, but in the long term, if Ezra hadn’t considered that, it might have prompted him to start making an effort to commit things to memory; something that Kanan never got a chance to do.

He rubbed his free hand over his face “You really dropped me in it, but I suppose I should be thanking you.  I should have started these lessons a long time ago.  I’ve been putting it off, and I’m not even sure why.”

Her hand tightened around his, and she stepped a little closer, closing the distance between them.  “You know why,” she said.

He sighed.  She was right.  Bad memories, ones that he had never planned to relive.  Every time he thought about Ezra’s future, he saw his own past, and he hated it.  He didn’t want to think about that time of his life, and he definitely didn’t want to think about Ezra going through the same thing.

It wouldn’t be the same though.  Ezra could prepare, he could equip himself with the tools and knowledge that he would need.  It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would help with enough.  But he could only do that if Kanan could help him.

“Yeah, I know why,” he said, and smiled.  “I’m lazy.”

Hera expelled a sharp burst of air through her nose as she tried not to laugh.  He felt it ripple against the skin of his partially exposed chest, and smiled back at her.  She took a step back, and tugged at his hand, encouraging him to follow her across the room.  It wasn’t the best method of guiding, but that wasn’t what she was doing, not really.  Still, he tuned out the world around him and put himself in her hands, trusting that she wouldn’t allow him to get hurt.

When they reached the opposite side of the room, she spun around, then pushed down gently on his shoulders until he sat down on the edge of her bunk.  She sat down next to him, put an arm around his back, and for several moments they sat there in silence, simply enjoying the closeness that had somehow slipped away from them in recent weeks.

“I’m sorry,” Hera said eventually.  “You were right, I should have talked to you about what I was going to do before I spoke to Ezra, if only to prepare you.”

He shook his head, “No,  _you_  were right.  I’d have tried to change your mind.”

She sighed.  “That might not have been a bad thing.”

Kanan frowned.

“I don’t mean I shouldn’t have done it,” she clarified.  “I stand by everything I said.  Well, no.  I never intended to tell Ezra he needed to be able to do everything without seeing. Not yet.  But apart from that, I wasn’t wrong.  He  _does_  need to be honest with us.  He needs to know what he’s going to do if things go wrong, and he needs to stop avoiding check-ups with the med droid, even if he does find them uncomfortable.”

Kanan nodded.  “He does.”

She sighed again.  A deflating sound, like the air was being forced out of her by the pressure of the memories.  “But you’re right, maybe if I’d spoken to you first, we’d have come up with something better.”

“I didn’t say that,” Kanan told her.

“Yes you did, earlier today.  And Ezra said the same thing.  I should have talked it over with you.”

She probably should have.  Even if they hadn’t been able to come up with better conditions, maybe they could have thought up a better way to explain things to Ezra, because Kanan was certain there had been some kind of miscommunication there.  Maybe they could have practiced the whole thing, decided what they would and wouldn’t have said and, most importantly, when the time came to tell Ezra, they could have done it together.  They could have presented the united front that Hera had wanted, and not accidentally made something up on the spot that it was obvious Ezra was going to seize hold of as a get-out clause.

“Yeah,” he said with a smile to show her he wasn’t completely serious — Hera wouldn’t be able to sense that in him the way that he could.  “It was kind of a disaster, and then you left me to pick up the pieces.  Thanks.”

Hera laughed, then tapped him lightly on the arm with her hand.  

“What?” he asked.  “You said it, not me.”

“I did,” she agreed.  “I just don’t understand why he’s so resistant to taking the easier option.”

“When have you ever known Ezra do something just because it’s easier?” he asked with a rueful smile.  “But you know, in this case maybe it’s actually  _not_  easier.  Not for him.  Think about it; honesty?  Sure, but he’s been keeping secrets from us for so long it’s going to be a tough habit to break.”

Hera took a deep breath.  “It’s non-negotiable,” she began.  “We need to be able to trust…”

“I know,” Kanan insisted.  “We need to know what he can and can’t do, and trust what he tells us about it, but imagine that from his point of view, if you can.  And honestly, I don’t think that’s even the thing he’s most worried about.  It’s the other two.  Enno-fifteen’s… difficult to say the least.  And the way he acts… honestly, if he’d been that way with me, I’d have been avoiding appointments too.”

Hera shifted her position slightly on the bed.  He felt her leg moving next to his.  “Is it really that bad?” she asked.

He hesitated.  It was bad.  Maybe if the circumstances were different, it would have been easier for Ezra to cope with.  Maybe a year or so down the line when he was more able to accept what was happening, when it wasn’t so new and frightening – because for all that he might insist that he had gotten used to the idea during the year or so that he had been keeping it a secret, Kanan knew that was a lie – maybe then it wouldn’t be so bad.  But for now?  The droid’s indifference to Ezra combined with his interest in the syndrome.  The casual way he talked about Ezra’s impending blindness as though it was nothing, a footnote at the end of the fascinating condition that he had been given the opportunity to study.

“Yeah,” he said.  “It’s pretty bad.”

She hesitated at that, obviously knowing that he was holding something back, but unsure whether she should ask when he hadn’t volunteered the information.  She placed a hand on his arm and they sat in silence for a moment.

“He’s the only droid we have,” she said eventually, quietly.  “I can’t justify a transfer, not again.  And not considering that particular droid’s speciality.  And it’s not like a corrupted personality drive is something I can fix, it’s not a mechanical problem.  And that’s even if that  _is_  what’s wrong.  Anyway, trying to change it wouldn’t be right, it’s be like trying to change Chopper.”

Kanan smirked.

“Don’t say it.”

He shook his head.  “I wouldn’t dare.”

He felt, rather than heard, her laugh.  Not through the Force, but through the tiny vibration of the bed beneath them.  She stopped suddenly, and turned to face him.  “Okay, carry on then.  What was wrong with the other condition I gave him?  You picked the others apart.”

Kanan leaned backward, hands on the bed behind him, face turned upward slightly.  “Have a plan for everything that could possibly go wrong?  You want to talk about how  _that’s_  going to make him feel?  When’s the last time  _you_  went into a situation knowing exactly what you were going to do in every single scenario that could possibly happen?”

She slumped a little; he felt it both in her emotions through the Force and in the way her body actually appeared to collapse into the bed under the pressure of his words.  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.  “I just meant he needs to be ready, he needs to be able to prove that he’s ready.  When I go into the field, I know the options available to me, I know how to use them.  I didn’t want a written blow-by-blow of what he’s going to do in every single situation.”

Kanan nodded.  “It’s a good thing too, he’s never been much of a writer; he can’t spell.  I doubt losing his sight is going to improve that.”

Hera landed a gentle punch on his arm.  “That’s not funny,” she told him.

It wasn’t.  Ezra hadn’t exactly had a lot of schooling before his parents had been taken and he had found himself living on the street.  Frankly, it was a miracle that he could read at all.

Not that he would be able to for much longer, not unless he changed his mind and allowed Sabine to teach him the tactile alphabet, but Kanan couldn’t imagine that happening any time soon.

Even if it did happen, it wasn’t an easy thing to learn.  Kanan would have given up himself already by now if he didn’t know how much it meant to Sabine.

Hera took a deep breath and released it as a long sigh.  “So I need to talk to him again,” she said.  “I need to make some things clearer too him, then maybe I can convince him to work on the three things I  _did_  want him to do and not worry about the rest for now.”

Kanan shifted uncomfortably.  She was right, she  _did_  need to talk to him again, she needed to clarify a few misunderstandings, and she needed to hear first-hand why Ezra didn’t want to visit Enno-fifteen, but…

“What?” Hera asked, either seeing or somehow sensing his hesitation.

“First,  _we_  need to talk to him.  You don’t have to do it on your own.  Not unless you want to, anyway.”

She touched his hand, placing her own on the top of it and allowing it to rest there gently.  “Thank you,” she said.

“Secondly, he  _does_  need to worry about the other stuff.  He needs to pursue both.  I don’t want to discourage him from learning the things he needs.  How it happened wasn’t ideal, but he’s actually asking to learn now, not trying to pretend this isn’t happening.

Hera paused thoughtfully.   “You’re right,” she said.  “But I suppose that means  _we_  have to stop pretending too.”

Kanan didn’t reply.  It hadn’t been a question.  Even if it had been, the answer would have been obvious.  He hadn’t been pretending, but he  _had_  been putting things off, convincing himself that he had time that Ezra simply didn’t have.

“So, what comes next?” she asked.  “In an ideal scenario, after we talk to him?”

It was a difficult question to answer.  “It depends on Ezra,” he said.  “What he decides over the next few days and weeks will determine everything.  Either way though, I’m going to have to start working seriously on some kind of a plan for what to teach him, and in what order; something I can stick to, so I avoid incidents like today next time.”

Hera sank into silence for a moment.  “I guess we both messed up,” she said.  “We’ll have to try to do better going forward.”

Easier said than done, of course, but he suspected she already knew that.  “I think the most important thing is to make sure he knows that this isn’t the disaster he thinks it is.  He’s scared, and of course he is, but when it comes down to it, honestly he’s survived worse before.  Once he’s learned everything he needs to know, and once he’s gotten used to the idea, he’s going to carry on as he always did, and he’s going to be fine.”

Next to him, Hera’s shoulder moved just slightly against his arm as she nodded.

“It’s not just Ezra that needs to know that, though,” he continued.  “He’s surrounded on all sides by… not negativity exactly, but…sadness, I suppose.  People feeling like it’s a tragedy.  And he’s going to pick up on that, whether they say anything or not, and it’s not going to help.  Believe me, I  _know_  how much that’s not going to help.”

“It’ll be tough to change everyone’s minds though,” she said.

“It’ll be tough just to change  _our_  minds,” Kanan said.  “When I first heard about this, I felt exactly the same way, and I still do about half the time.  It’s  _not_  fair, and it is a horrible shock that’s going to take a lot of getting over; but when it comes down to it, sight is nice, and a lot of the time it would be useful, but it’s not necessary to have a good life.  Not for anybody, but especially not for Force users.”

Hera took a deep breath, and for a long time didn’t respond.  He could sense a strange combination of sadness and hope from her, as though his words had penetrated, but she couldn’t help but fight against them.  She was imagining a world without sight.  The Force gave him no way of sensing that, the knowledge came to him through his understanding of her.  She was thinking of everything she would have to give up, everything she would miss out on in the future: flying, seeing — actually seeing and not just experiencing — the galaxy free of the Empire, Sabine’s art, the faces of her crew, her family.

She would survive too, if it ever happened, and she would be okay.  He would make sure of it.  It wasn’t going to happen, of course, not unless the Force decided to  _really_  screw with them, but the same thoughts had to have gone through a lot of minds recently, and that was probably part of the problem too.

Eventually, she took a deep breath and released it as a sigh.  “You’re right,” she said.  “Of course you’re right.  The question is, how do we get Ezra to see it that way?”

“Time,” he said.  “Time and experience.”

“Great.  So just wait.” She sighed again and leaned against him.

Kanan leaned back too, resting his shoulders against the wall at the back of his bunk.  He could feel her exhaustion in the way her weight pressed against him, muscles relaxing, softening, ready for sleep.  He put an arm around her.

“Wait,” he agreed, “but also help, where we can.  Talk to him about it, normalize it.  For us and for him.”

She nodded, stifling a yawn with her hand.

“Another thing,” Kanan said.  “We need to stop the thing we’re doing where we make everything about this.  You know, not so long ago if I came to your quarters in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t have been to talk about Ezra.”

She didn’t laugh; she was too tired.  He still felt her amusement through the Force, muted by either exhaustion, or the fact that it wasn’t actually that funny.  

“You need to sleep,” he said.  He needed it too, but Hera was literally fighting the urge to lose consciousness.  Carefully, he got to his feet, making sure to still support her weight with his hands.  When he was standing, he lowered her so her head rested on the soft layer on the top of her bunk.  Sleepily, she allowed him to lift her feet and place them on the bunk.

He pulled a cover over her, then turned and tiptoed away.

“Kanan, wait.”

So, she wasn’t quite as almost-asleep as he had thought.  He turned to face her.  A quiet tapping sound filled the room as she patted the bunk next to her, inviting him to stay.

He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options, then padded back across the room.  The bunks on the ship weren’t large, but they were big enough to fit two people almost comfortably, if they didn’t mind sharing personal space.  He lay down next to her, and she rested an arm over him before drifting instantly off to sleep.

Kanan lay there for several minutes, before he joined her.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved, as always.


End file.
